The Marauders Babysit
by LittleMissNack
Summary: After Lily is summoned to an order of the phoenix meeting there are only 3 people left she can leave her baby with… the marauders!


"Honey are you sure you can handle this? Maybe I shouldn't go…" Lily changed her mind for the 100th time that morning

"Lils! It's just one day! And plus Mooney and Padfoot are going to skip the meeting too to help me anyway!" James smiled reassuringly but Lily's frown didn't change.

"You and Sirius babysitting? I wonder why that doesn't completely fill me with confidence!" Lily remarked sarcastically and walking from the front room to the baby's room.

"Hey! We're not 'babysitting' he's my son! Plus Mooney will be with us and it's not even close to his time of the month!" James followed his wife to his sons room. Lily rolled her eyes at James analogy.

"Look I'm not doubting your parenting abilities it's just….. We all know there's a war coming James and he's after Harry we KNOW that he could show up at any time…" Lily turned serious for a second.

"Dumbledore himself taught us the charm there's no way he'll break through it and if he does I'll protect Harry at all costs I promise! Look Lil you're always so busy with Harry and worrying about him constantly and with us being in so much Danger you've never really had a day off! You've missed so many order meetings as well looking after him and Dumbledore did ask for you personally to attend so let me take a turn to stay home!" Lily stared at him for a long moment before finally sighing and grabbing her bag.

"The meeting doesn't end till 8 at the latest but I can always come home if you need" Lily reluctantly gave in. James smiled and nodded suddenly straightening up. Lily grabbed her dark haired son from his crib who seemed excited by the whole exchange.

"Harry you're going to be spending the day with daddy isn't that going to be fun!" Lily excitedly cooed at her 8 month old son who did not seem so excited about the days plan. James quickly took Harry from her hands before she could notice his frown.

"I love you sweetheart gimmie a kiss before I go" Lily bent down and pouted her lips at Harry but James bent down and took his place instead.

"Aw thanks love you too Lils" James smirked at Lily's fed up expression.

"Very Funny Potter" she said as she kissed Harry on the head and walked out into the hallway with James following her. Lily began giving orders as she put her shoes on.

"His nappies are under his dressing table, his bottle's in the top cupboard in the kitchen, if he get restless just give him his Hippogriff teddy or let him play with your snitch he loves that thing, and don't let him near the crayons he's drawing over everything lately, and do NOT let him near that broom Sirius brought him he's far too young for it yet! Oh and his naptime's….." At this moment Lily opened the door to find Sirius and Remus, both with big grins plastered on their faces that never ceased to worry Lily.

"Don't fear your babysitting crew has arrived Wormy would have stayed too but he said he didn't want to miss this meeting so it's just Mooney and me today" Sirius beamed. Lily turned pale.

"Maybe I should stay…"

"NO! Lily you're going to the order meeting!" James exclaimed as he grabbed Sirius and Remus by the collars and dragged them in and pushed Lily out of the door.

"Oh but his naptime…" Lily panicked trying to finish her earlier orders.

"We'll be fine Lily it's time for you to go now. Say goodbye to mama Harry!" James grabbed Harry's hand and started moving it in a waving fashion. As Lily frantically tried to continue her orders.

"His naptimes 1 o clock!" Lily managed to shout to James.

"1, got it. Bye mama!" James waved Harry's hand as he closed the door on a frantic Lily who finally began to give up and was trying to say goodbye to Harry. Sirius grinned as Lily finally allowed the door to be closed on her.

"Great! Now that mamas away the boys can play! What do you wanna do Harry? You wanna play quiditch on the broom your uncle Sirius brought you? Alrighty then!" Harry would have been happy to go along with anything Sirius suggested in his soft baby voice but James suddenly paniced.

"I don't know Pads Lily said he's too young…"

"Oh what does she know! Too young! You're looking at a future professional quiditch played here James and it's never too early for professionals to start practicing! Plus he's YOUR son isn't he? He's got quiditch in his blood he'll be FINE and Lily's not even here anymore!" Sirius persuaded half way through his sentence he'd taken Harry out of James arms and was walking him over to his toy cupboard to find the box that held the broom Sirius had bought him.

"It could be dangerous Sirius…." Remus looked worried as he watched Sirius put Harry down and open the box.

"Stop being so boring Mooney Harry'll be fine! And he WANTS to play on the broom don't you baby Prongs!" Sirius grinned as he held the broom down to Harry who instantly gripped it tight in his little hands and started to put the end in his mouth before Sirius took it of him and set it up next to Harry who watched in fascination as the broom began to float.

Remus and James watched nervously as Sirius helped the baby on and held his shirt and the broom began to slowly take off. Harry beamed and laughed in amazement at his newfound transportation, while Sirius took his hands of Harry's shirt to cross his arms and give his friends a smug 'I told you so' expression.

This was when the broom roared to life and Harry failed to hold on so fell with a thud onto the ground. James ran over and picked Harry up just as he began to wail.

"Nice going Padfoot!" Mooney sighed as Harry's cries got louder and James tried to rock him while simultaneously checking for injuries. James' eyes widened as the crying got louder and it appeared as if he was no comfort at all.

"It's okay Harry it's okay it was just a fall ….. please stop crying" James panicked.

"Your rocking him wrong… " Sirius insisted taking a step forward and holding his arms out but James turned himself and Harry away.

"You've done enough!" Remus sighed as Harry's cries reached new panicking levels.

"Look just pass him here!" Remus insisted, James instantly handed the crying baby over and Remus began bouncing him gently up and down.

"Hush now Harry come on, it's just a little bump!" Mooney said bouncing him more viciously now.

"Stop it Mooney you're gonna make him sick!" Sirius warned as Harry's cries increased.

"Well do you have any better ideas!?" Remus shot back. James put him hand on his forehead

"What did Lily say about crying?...MY SNITCH!" James exclaimed running towards his and Lily's bedroom and returning with this tiny golden snitch he kept in his bedside table.

"Look Harry! Look it's daddy's snitch you love daddy's snitch don't you!" Harry stopped crying as his eyes filled with wonder and Remus turned him to look at the golden ball with delicate wings. Remus gently set Harry down on the floor as James set off the snitch to go flying around the house. Harry giggled in delight as his eyes followed the snitch completely, even at times when James, Sirius and Remus couldn't. James sighed in relief

"Right boys whose up for a sna…" at that moment the snitch banged into Harry's forhead so fast Harry fell over. James grabbed Harry as Sirius grabbed the snitch and put him down on the dressing table in his room as he cried. James' face paled as he saw the big red mark the snitch had left on Harry's head.

"That's going to bruise! It's going to bruise and Lily is never going to leave me alone with him ever again! Actually forget that Lily's never going to even trust me again!" James panicked as he turned towards his friends.

"Calm down prongs! Look we'll do a little healing spell and he'll be good as new and Lily never has to know we hurt the baby!" Padfoot suggested as he stepped forward and held his wand out but James grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"No offense Pad but my wife's trust is on the line here, he needs to look PERFECT and we all know Mooney's the best at spells" Sirius sighed and gestured for Remus to take his place. Remus cleared his throat and held out his wand and gently cast the spell at his forehead. A soft white light swallowed the red mark up and Harry's skin was as clear as it had been before. James exhaled deeply

"Mooney you are a life saver!" James said handing Harry the hippogriff teddy in his crib which seemed to sooth his crying.

"It was my idea" Sirius grumbled

"So was putting him on that broom in the first place!" Remus sighed.

* * *

The boys put Harry on the floor with his toy chest so he could play while they had snacks at the table and discussed what Dumbledore wanted to talk about at the order meeting.

"Why do you think he asked for Lily specifically though?" James wondered aloud.

"I don't know, maybe it's to do with Harry, no offense Prongs but Lily is kind of his primary parents and if Dumbledore could only speak to one of you about him it makes sense that it would be her" Remus shrugged.

"Hey! After today I'm going to be Harry's primary parent and Lily's gonna trust me with him all the time! I'll amaze her with my parenting skills!" James boasted. Sirius and Remus laughed uncontrollably at this "Well I managed to impress her with my boyfriend skills enough that she married me didn't i!?" James exclaimed

"Oh it's not that…. Although that is still one of the many mysteries of the world! It's your son…. Clearly he doesn't have the same concerns about impressing his mother!" Sirius broke down laughing while pointing over to Harry.

James turned around to find crayon sprayed out in front of Harry and a nice big red one finishing off his masterpiece drawing on the wall. James mouth hung open and he stared at him in shock before finally running over and snatching the crayon of him and scooping him up in his arms.

"NO! Harry! Do you realise how much trouble I'll be in with your mum when she sees this!?" James frantically looked from Harry to the wall then found Harry had the nerve to giggle at his misfortune.

"Oh you think this is funny do you mister!? Well we'll see how funny it is when our bringing girls home to meet me and I show them ALL your embarrassing photos!"

"Just relax! We can fix this! Look you two get Harry changed out his messy clothes and I'll scrub the wall!" Sirius offered. James and Remus wasted no time getting Harry to the changing table and taking off his crayon stained T-shirt and jeans. However just before James was about to put fresh jeans on him a distinct smell caught his attention.

"…. Mooney check Harry's nappy" James said holding Harry at arm's length and offering him to his friend who turned away in disgust!

"I'm not doing it! He's your son you change his nappy!"

"Come on Mooney just check for me will you!?" James pleaded. Remus cautiously unbuttoned Harry's vest and tentatively peaked into his nappy and quickly turned away.

"Yeah he's defiantly ready for changing! You're up daddy!" Remus said backing as far up from James as he could. James rolled his eyes at Mooney but looked tentatively at his own son as he placed him down and found the nappies and talcum powder.

"Right!" James said trying to seem confident but failing. "First we take off the old nappy…" James said as he ripped off the nappy and disposed of It as quickly as possible.

"Then we….." But James never got to finish the sentence as Harry had conveniently decided he needed to wee when his nappy was off and James and Remus, who had moved closer to try and help James got drenched his wee. James immediately panicked and frantically held his hand up to protect his face and body but Remus was smarted and simply ran out of Harry's line of fire just after the initial impact. After what seemed an impossible length of time for a child as small as Harry to be weeing he finally stopped and James and Remus stared at each other then Harry in disbelieve as Harry giggled sweetly at his soaked father.

"Oh you are just SO funny today aren't you!" James gritted his teeth as his quickly applied the talcum powder then put the new nappy on. Harry laughed again in amusement as he was handed to Remus.

"Finish dressing him then put him down to play with the toys…. But make sure the crayons are away…. Somewhere high up preferably! I'm going to take a shower" James said calmly holding in all his anger. Remus quickly did as he said and brought Harry back into Sirius.

"Where's Prongs?" Sirius asked as Remus put Harry down.

"In the shower, this one decided between nappy changed was the best time for a wee!" Remus shook his head "I'm lucky, he only got my T-shirt, I'm going to go put one of James's on" Remus returned in a Holyhead harpies T-shirt.

"Um…. Mooney? We might have a problem" Sirius said quietly.

"Please no more problems!" Remus exclaimed. Sirius then lifted the sponge he'd enchanted to wash the wall and revealed the stains weren't any closer to disappearing than they had been when Harry first drew them.

"Lily is going to FREAK out!" Remus' eyes widened

"There must be something else we can try!" Sirius panicked staring around the room. As he looked around he saw Harry's paints on the floor

"Wait paints! We can re-paint the wall!" Sirius exclaimed in excitement, Remus however looked sceptical

"Do you even know how to do any painting spells?"

"Well…. No but how hard can they be!?" Remus buried his head in his hands. "This has the makings of a DISASTER….but we have no other plans and Prongs'll have a breakdown if he sees this… so I guess it's worth a shot!" Sirius lined himself up into position ready then carefully performed the spell. However all Sirius precautions didn't help Sirius know the spell, he found instead of cream coloured paint coming from his wand, bright green paint did. Sirius eyes widened as he turned to Remus who looked equally as panicked. Suddenly they heard the water from the shower stop which caused even more panic

"We have about 5 minitues!" Remus whispered.

"What do we do! Prongs can't see this!" Remus scanned the room again then noticed the living room chair about 3 inches from the massive paint stain.

"The chair!" Remus was already starting to move it before he'd finished his sentence. Sirius quickly helped him and after they'd finished covering up there accident they stood back to admire there work

"Do you think he'll notice?" Sirius asked.

"Do you think I'll notice what?" James asked creeping up from behind them wrapped in a towel, this caused Sirius and Remus to jump forward.

"Notice…. What a great job we did on the wall" Sirius smiled confidently James inspected it quickly before smiling

"Looks great, thanks guys you really are life savers!" James looked so relieved that Sirius and Remus now felt they could relax.

"You can go have a shower now Mooney, I'll go get changed then we'll feed Harry and put him down for a nap."

* * *

Feeding Harry was a far less easy task than the marauders had anticipated. At first Harry plainly refused to eat any food put in front of him, then eventually after half an hour of trying James finally got him to eat by pretending his spoon was a broomstick than needed to find the golden snitch. However this just got Harry more and more excited and soon Harry though he was in a full on food fight and started throwing all different parts of his food in all different directions. By the time they had finally finished feeding him more food was on the floor and walls than in his mouth. But the Marauders were just excited to put Harry to bed and have a few minutes peace and quiet, but Harry didn't seem to want to do peace and quiet. The marauders tried everything they could think of to get Harry to sleep; rocking him, reading him the tales of beadle the bard, singing him lullaby's (which made Harry cry even more), giving him his hippogriff teddy, even pretending to be asleep themselves but nothing worked!

"Why is he being so difficult today! He's never this bad with Lily!" James cried as he rocked Harry for what felt like the millionth time. Sirius sighed

"He's being stubborn because he's YOUR son! Look just try reading him another story!"

"We tried that he won't…." Remus began.

"No try something more personal, something ABOUT him" Sirius looked exasperated as he slide down the wall and onto the floor.

"… Okay. Hey Harry, listen, listen to Daddy…. Do you want to hear how your mummy and I met and how you were born?" James suggested which seemed to at least shut the crying baby up, but caused groans from his friends.

"I've heard that one too many times! Can't we here a different one!" James glared at Sirius

"This story isn't FOR you it's FOR Harry now shut up and listen!" James snapped

"See Harry it all started back when your mummy and I started Hogwarts together, you're going to go too Hogwarts one day you know! Anyways I met your mother that day and we instantly fell in love and…."

"Don't lie to the boy!" Remus urged. James sighed.

"Alright FINE but I did fall instantly in love with her that day she just thought I was…"

"Arrongant?"

"Boastful?"

"A selfish prat?"

"A completely pompous moron?"

"Yes we get the point thank you very much!"

"Her words not ours!"

"Anyways Harry" James continued shooting warning glances at Remus and Sirius who were snickering. "Your mother didn't like me very much. I never gave up on her though, there were times when I thought it would be easier to give up but I just… couldn't do it. Then finally in out last year at Hogwarts I was head boy and she was head girl and she was forced to spend time with me. I don't remember how long it took for her to get to me! Probably not long, she has a super power your mum does, she inspires everyone she meets to be better. Half way through the year she began to realise I wasn't all bad and that I was trying hard to change so she took a chance on me and finally said yes. I never stopped trying to be better after that. I'm so glad she gave me a chance, because if she never gave me a chance we'd never have had you and you are the equal best thing that has ever happened to me! Next to your mother of course!" James smiled and took a moment to think about her, about that moment she finally gave him everything he'd ever wanted since 1st year, just a yes.

When James finally looked back Harry was asleep in his arms. James smiled and gently lifted him into his cot and turned off the light as he left his room.

"Never heard that version of the story before I must admit!" Remus raised an eyebrow at James who rolled his eyes.

"Come on we know it's what really happened, now let's just have some food and enjoy the quite before little junior prongs over there wakes up again!" James said walking over to the refrigerator.

* * *

After his nap Harry played nicely with the marauders for the rest of the afternoon. They played with almost every single one of his toys as Harry never could seem to make his mind up. It wasn't until Remus finally looked at the living room clock that the marauders even noticed what time it was.

"Hey Prongs! What time did you say Lily would be back?" Remus asked sceptically.

"She said 4 o clock why?" James absent mindedly answered as he and Sirius put on a puppet show with Harry's toys to make him laugh.

"Well….because she's going to be home in about 10 minutes and this place is a bit of a mess…" Remus paused as they all inspected the house. The living room was clattered with thousands of toys, the kitchen still had giant food stains everywhere and Harry's room still had dirty clothes everywhere and stains on the wall from where he had wee'd on his father!

"Oh my god she's going to kill me!" James panicked.

"It's okay just relax, we still have 10 minutes we can get this done! I'll take the living room, you take the kitchen and Mooney you put Harry in the playpen then tackle his bedroom!" Sirius ordered with no complaints. The following 10 minutes were the most chaotic 10 minutes the marauders had ever faced! James frantically scrubbed the kitchen walls and floor by hand as he wasn't as confident on his cleaning spells. Sirius ran around trying to find where hundreds of different toys had come from and Remus desperately tried to get the smell of wee out of Harry's room and the stains of the wall. Just as they heard someone apparate across the path the marauders finished there respected tasks and smiled in relief for a moment before Sirius suddenly realised there one mistake; The broom. Sirius dived into the living room and took his wand out, as soon as James and Reamus caught on they ran to his aid helping him to stuff the toy broom back into it's box for Sirius to do the sealing spell faster than he'd ever done a spell in his life and shove it back into the cupboard just as Lily opened the door.

"Boys? I'm back!" Lily took her coat of and prepared herself for the inevitable mess that would come with leaving her child alone with the marauders! However to her surprise when she turned into the kitchen she found the whole place spotless! She stared around the house in shock.

"Hey Sweetheart your home!" James grinned kissing her on the cheek before Remus and Sirius got to her and gave her gentle hugs.

"But…. I don't understand….. this place it's…. clean!" Lily stammered James grinned confidently

"I knew you expected me to fail! Look I'm not that bad! This whole dad business is quite easy we had a lovely day didn't we Harry!" James headed over to the living room and took Harry out of his playpen and handed him to Lily as proof. Lily smiled

"I know you're a good dad James! I just…. Well all 3 of you babysitting! You can't blame me for being a bit amazed!" Lily held Harry and kissed him on his forehead, the boys held the breath hoping she wouldn't find the slight lump from where his bruise had been! But luckily for them she just continued to smile, in complete relief that they'd actually managed to pull it off he grabbed Lily and hugged her and Harry again then muttered under his breath

"I have no idea how you do this every day!"


End file.
